Bill Chappell

Bill Chappell is a writer and producer who currently works on The Two Way, NPR's flagship news portal. In the past, he has edited and coordinated digital features for Morning Edition and Fresh Air, in addition to editing the rundown of All Things Considered. He frequently contributes to other NPR blogs, such as All Tech Considered and The Salt.

Chappell's work at NPR has ranged from being the site's first full-time homepage editor to being the lead writer and editor on the London 2012 Olympics blog, The Torch. His assignments have included being the lead web producer for NPR's trip to Asia's Grand Trunk Road, as well as establishing the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps on NPR.org.

In 2009, Chappell was a key editorial member of the small team that redesigned NPR's web site. One year later, the site won its first Peabody Award, along with the National Press Foundation's Excellence in Online Journalism award.

At NPR, Chappell has trained both digital and radio staff to use digital tools to tell compelling stories, in addition to "evangelizing" — promoting more collaboration between legacy and digital departments.

Prior to joining NPR in late 2003, Chappell worked on the Assignment Desk at CNN International, handling coverage in areas from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America, and coordinating CNN's pool coverage out of Qatar during the Iraq war.

Chappell's work for CNN also included producing Web stories and editing digital video for SI.com, and editing and producing stories for CNN.com's features division.

Before joining CNN, Chappell wrote about movies, restaurants and music for alternative weeklies, in addition to his first job: editing the police blotter.

A holder of bachelor's degrees in English and History from the University of Georgia, he attended graduate school for English Literature at the University of South Carolina.

News that at least six current or former senior members of the Trump administration have used private email accounts as they conduct official business has prompted the White House to clarify its policy.

"All White House personnel have been instructed to use official email to conduct all government related work," Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. "They are further instructed that if they receive work-related communication on personal accounts, they should be forwarded to official email accounts."

The Supreme Court has taken two cases involving President Trump's controversial travel ban off its calendar, after the White House issued a revised and expanded ban. The justices ordered both sides to file new briefs over whether parts of the issue are now moot.

"The cases are removed from the oral argument calendar, pending further order of the Court," the justices wrote in an order issued Monday.

Parties in the two cases — Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project and Trump v. Hawaii — have until next Thursday, Oct. 5, to file their briefs.

North Korea's foreign minister says President Trump's tweets about the Korean nation amount to a declaration of war and that under international law, his country can legally shoot down U.S. military planes — even if they're not in North Korea's airspace.

White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner has used both a private email account and an official email address to communicate with other government officials, according to his attorney. Responding to media reports about Kushner's email habits, his lawyer said, "All non-personal emails were forwarded to his official address."

The emails between Kushner's personal account and his White House colleagues number fewer than 100, Kushner's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement relayed by NPR's Tamara Keith.

Iran unveiled a new ballistic missile Friday, showing off the weapon during a military parade in Tehran. "When it comes to defending our country, we will ask nobody for their permission," President Hassan Rouhani said.

Uber's license to operate in London expires in eight days — and London's transportation agency says it won't be renewed, citing a range of problems that make the company "not fit and proper to hold a private hire operator licence."

The issues raised by Transport for London include Uber's "approach to reporting serious criminal offences" and how it handles background checks.

Uber says it will appeal the decision. Transport for London had been considering granting Uber a five-year license. The company was first licensed in London in 2012.

Puerto Rico is trying to start the process of recovering from Hurricane Maria — and it's doing so after the powerful storm blew homes apart, filled roads with water and tore at its infrastructure. Flash floods are persisting, and the island has no electricity service.

"We are without power, the whole island is without power," Jenniffer González-Colón, Puerto Rico's resident commissioner — its representative in Congress — told Morning Edition on Thursday. González-Colón spoke from Carolina, near San Juan.

Wenner Media, the company founded by publisher Jann Wenner, is selling its controlling stake in the iconic music and culture magazine Rolling Stone, citing a desire "to best position the brand for future growth."

The news comes one year after Wenner Media sold 49 percent of Rolling Stone to BandLab Technologies, a digital music company based in Singapore.

The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Maria is an extremely dangerous storm. It was a Category 5 storm when it hit the island of Dominica. Later it was downgraded to a Category 4 hurricane. But a short time ago, forecasters says Maria had regained the strength of a Category 5 hurricane.

A judge has acquitted former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley of first-degree murder in the shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith in late 2011. The verdict over Smith's killing has been highly anticipated — and it prompted protests outside the courthouse.

People who live along the U.S. East Coast from North Carolina up to New England should monitor Hurricane Jose, forecasters say. The storm's winds won't get close to land until Sunday or Monday — but it was formally declared a hurricane again on Friday afternoon.

The shocking news that eight people who were residents of the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Hollywood, Fla., died at the facility in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma has sparked many questions about how such a thing could happen. It has also led to nearly 150 patients being taken to local hospitals.

"The Hollywood Police Department has been granted a search warrant for this property," Raelin Storey, the city's public affairs director, said at a news conference outside the nursing home Thursday morning.

More than 4 million customers in Florida and other states hit by Hurricane Irma remain without electricity, complicating efforts to recover from the huge and intense storm. Some areas also lack water service or are under a mandatory boil water order.

The most outages are in Florida, where nearly 3.8 million accounts don't have power — around 36 percent of the state's total, according to state agency FloridaDisaster.org.

The cleanup after Hurricane Irma is a massive undertaking, after the destructive storm hit Florida and neighboring states over the weekend. In Miami, a nun chipped in to clear trees in her neighborhood — and no one, it seems, can resist a story about a chainsaw-wielding nun.

Sister Margaret Ann was spotted at work by an off-duty officer of the Miami-Dade Police Department, which posted video and images from the scene in the community of Kendall West Tuesday.

Tesla owners who were in Hurricane Irma's path in the Southeast recently got an unexpected boost to help them, after the carmaker remotely upgraded vehicle batteries to their highest capacity.

The boost gave customers' cars an extra 30 to 40 miles, but it's also temporary: The batteries will lose their extra juice this weekend.

The move came at the request of a customer who was worried about traffic and the range between charging stations during a massive evacuation that saw millions of Americans leave their homes in Florida, Georgia and neighboring states.

Irma sustained its 185-mph winds for 37 hours – "the longest any cyclone around the globe has maintained that intensity on record," according to Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist at Colorado State University. The previous record was held by Typhoon Haiyan, also called Super Typhoon Yolanda, which hit the Philippines in 2013.

Irma, once a powerful and longrunning hurricane, weakened to a tropical depression as it moved through Georgia on its way to Alabama. It continues to dump heavy rain but all surge warnings have been canceled.

Irma has left behind dangerous floodwaters, power outages for millions of people and the debris it has made of human possessions across Florida.

The huge storm remained a Category 1 hurricane through early Monday, before finally being downgraded to a tropical storm and then a tropical depression.

As southern Florida prepares to take a direct hit from Hurricane Irma, officials have warned people in downtown Miami to take special care because of the 20 to 25 tower construction cranes that loom over the area, hundreds of feet tall.

The National Hurricane Center says Irma is now a Category 4 storm. It has maximum sustained winds of 155 mph.

Updated at 11 p.m. ET

Hurricane Irma continued its northwestward sweep Thursday evening, losing little steam as it skirted the Dominican Republic and Haiti and bearing the full force of its 165-mph winds down upon the southeastern Bahamas and away from the Turks and Caicos islands. Forecasters upgraded their alert for South Florida to a warning.

Two stained-glass windows honoring Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson at the Washington National Cathedral will be removed immediately, the cathedral says.

The facility's leadership says the decision came after long deliberations on an important question: "Are these windows, installed in 1953, an appropriate part of the sacred fabric of a spiritual home for the nation?"

The National Hurricane Center says the dangerous core of the storm will move away from Puerto Rico Thursday morning and is expected to pass just north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Irma is expected to be near the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas by Thursday evening.

Updated at 10:10 p.m. ET

As Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm that the National Hurricane Center calls "extremely dangerous," is making its way west through the Caribbean Sea.

The most powerful Atlantic Ocean hurricane in recorded history made its first landfall in Northeast Caribbean islands. The eye passed over Barbuda around 1:47 a.m, according to the National Weather Service.

Updated at 11:10 p.m. ET

"Hurricane Irma has intensified into an extremely dangerous Category 5 hurricane," the National Hurricane Center says, citing the latest data from NOAA and Air Force hurricane hunter aircraft.

The Salt Lake City hospital where a police officer roughly arrested a nurse who was protecting her patient's rights in July will no longer allow law enforcement agents inside its patient care areas. They'll now have to check in rather than enter through the emergency room.

A judge has thrown out charges of involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault against former members of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity who had been indicted by a grand jury over the death of pledge Timothy Piazza at Penn State.

A total of 18 Beta Theta Pi members were named in the grand jury's indictment released in May. As of Friday's ruling, 14 still face charges, after the judge dismissed the cases against four of the men.

Harvey is finally out of the picture — but the storm's devastating effects on Houston and other parts of Texas and Louisiana are still coming into focus. As waters recede, some areas remain flooded, and there is no drinking water in Beaumont.

At least 36 people are confirmed to have died because of the storm. Property damage could be as high as $100 billion, Moody's Analytics says.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says it has received more registrations for assistance — 364,000 — than for any previous single event.

The U.S. economy created an estimated 156,000 jobs in August, falling slightly short of analysts' estimates, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 4.4 percent; it had been at 4.3 percent.